The goals of this research are 1) to describe the progressive psychosocial effects of metastatic breast cancer, and 2) to study the impact of two interventions intended to prevent psychosocial deterioration: an expressive-supportive group psychotherapy intervention and an e-mail support group intervention. Two projects are being undertaken to support these goals. The first is an analysis of an existing dataset of an expressive-supportive group psychotherapy intervention study. The second is a study of an internet support group. Each of the two projects provide data from women with metastatic breast cancer who are randomly assigned to either an intervention group (participating in expressive-supportive group psychotherapy or an internet support group respectively) or a no-intervention control group. Metastatic breast cancer patients are an under-studied group of chronically-ill individuals. Obtaining a descriptive account of the psychosocial status of these patients is important so that their level of disability and need for mental health care services can be assessed. The second objective of this research is important because there is no cure for metastatic breast cancer; treatment approaches focus on improving quality of life and ameliorating symptoms, particularly psychosocial problems. Expressive-supportive group psychotherapy has been reported to be effective in reducing distress in a previous study; the present research aims to extend and refine the earlier results. The second intervention, an internet support group, is a novel, low-cost peer support intervention expected to be particularly helpful for patients who are too ill to travel to face-to-face support groups, and for patients in rural areas. Data for the two projects was gathered through questionnaires given to metastatic patients who either did or did not participate in an intervention. Questionnaires were given at several times over the course of disease. Hypotheses tested were 1)that women in the control groups show psychosocial deterioration over time 2)that deterioration is prevented in the intervention groups, such that the psychosocial health of intervention and control groups diverge over time.